Our Lady of Sorrows – Feminism and Religion

In Abiquiu New Mexico I walked down to the river and Bosque (wetland) communing with trees, leaving in the dark and returning before dawn every morning. Red Willow River is a tributary of the Rio Grande. I didn’t need to see; my feet knew the path by heart, so I was free to let my other senses take precedence. Listening to the sound of my feet, the first bird song, I moved into a still place, while first light gathered itself around me like a luminous cloak under the cottonwood trees. On my return the curves of the river and the dazzling painted sky held my rapt attention … I didn’t realize for a long time that this daily meander was actually a walking meditation that helped stabilize me in a place that I loved but could not call home.

In the mystical magical twilight, if the conditions were right, I witnessed the mist rise over the river and whenever this happened it seemed to me that I ‘sensed’ a figure emerging from that cloud… this apparent apparition never ceased to pull me into her ‘field’. The woman was always weeping and I called her La Llorona, believing that she wept for the Earth, my precious Earth, because her animals and trees and plants were dying. Extinction was concrete reality, a daily occurrence. Cultural denial made it impossible for me to share my grief, but here, with La Llorona, I was witnessed and free to mourn… Continue reading “La Llorona Musings by Sara Wright”

The month of May finds those within the Christian tradition solidly within Easter season, reveling in the promise of resurrection, while simultaneously celebrating Mother’s Day. To be honest, I’d never seen much of a correlation between these two events in the past. But since my brother’s death in March, I’m viewing everything through the lens of grief, likely a new perspective that will color the way I see the world forever. Namely, until this year, I’d never really given much thought to what Jesus’ mother, Mary, was feeling in a post-resurrection world. Of course, the suffering, sorrow, and sadness of a mother who watched her child die is something that most Christian churches highlight during Holy Week, on Good Friday, or even on Easter Sunday. But then our liturgy shifts, as though Mary transitioned from weeping at the gruesome death of her child one day and then suddenly celebrates the reality of resurrection the next. At the risk of extreme blasphemy—a place where I consistently reside—when I place myself in Mary’s shoes as a mother, resurrection kinda sucks. Continue reading “Painting Our Lady of Sorrows: Mother’s Day and Resurrection by Angela Yarber”